‘Diablo’ creator’s next game is a 2D dungeon crawler

If you lost hours and hours delving beneath Tristram in the original Diablo, you have David Brevik to thank, who created and programmed the classic action RPG. The veteran developer went on to co-found and head the studio that became Blizzard North, which made the even-more-successful Diablo II. After years consulting and leading studio Gazillion Entertainment, Brevik is returning to dungeons and lurking horrors in his next gameIt Lurks Below, which he created entirely himself and will launch later this year.

Like Diablo, It Lurks Below is a hybrid adventure game mixing class-based RPG elements with live action...and a lot of loot. Brevik even built the engine bringing the game's 2D pixel-block look to life. The game also has digging and construction mechanics -- literal delving -- in the vein of Minecraft and Terraria, which the veteran developer apparently adores, but wanted to put his own spin on.

"I wanted more of a point to a lot of those games," Brevik told Polygon. "I wanted to make an RPG, with classes and leveling up, random items, where you get more and more powerful as you go down into the core of the world and fight baddies."

Before it launches on Steam at an unspecified date later in 2018, players will be able to get an early look at It Lurks Below through closed betas. The first, happening this weekend, has already filled its 200 slots, but others will come -- and if you really can't wait, you can watch Brevik stream his new gem on the Twitch account of his personal studio Graybeard Games.